âSuppose so, sir.â
âPlus weâve got the regular stuff â the horoscopes, crossword and adverts. Mrs Armstrong has got the lowdown on dealing with exam stress too. Anyone want to pitch anything else?â
Huh, Mrs Armstrong is in her fifties â if she got low down, she wouldnât get back up again. I listened as the gang tossed ideas around. Mel wanted to write a piece about the art exhibition Year Ten were doing for Parentsâ Evening. I sat in silence, wondering whether my fellow Year Sevens were doing anything cool. Iâd have to dig around â hey, maybe that was what the scoop was for.
âSounds like another excellent issue,â Mr Bearman said, after a few more minutesâ discussion. âThe deadline for copy is two weeks from today and the magazine will go out the week after the May Ball. Good work, everyone.â
I blinked. Copy? What did we have to copy? Teachers usually go NUTSO if you do that â I remember what happened when Shenice and I forgot to do our History homework. We copied Mollyâs and sheâd written about how the Battle of Hating was won by William the Conker, so we did too. Our teacher gave us this big long lecture about how we were only cheating ourselves and how slackers never amounted to anything. Surely Mr Bearman didnât actually mean we should copy stuff to publish in HEY JUDEâS! Because I wasnât making that mistake again.
Mr Bearman must have seen my confusion because he came over. âEverything okay, Cassie?â
I didnât want to look like an idiot so I put on an expression of breezy confidence. âOh yes, sir. Iâm just off to copy something now. Where do you keep the scoop?â
He stared at me for a long moment. âAh. I thought Kelly might have explained a few basic journalist terms to you but apparently not. A scoop means a story we get before everyone else. Copy is what we call the writing that goes into the magazine. It doesnât mean we copy someone elseâs work â thatâs called plagiarism and itâs against the law.â
I nodded as though it all made sense, but really I was wondering why he couldnât have just said âthe deadline for articles is two weeks from todayâ. I can see there is a lot more to this journalism business than I thought, but I am determined to make it my Thing. Imagine having my name splashed across the front page in a searing article on the source of the terrible smell in the PE changing rooms â Iâd be totally famous at St Judeâs and maybe it would even get picked up by the WINDSOR RECORDER. Or maybe I could uncover the person behind JUICE ON JUDEâS â Iâd probably win an award for investigative skills. Then perhaps Liam would have to stop acting like he is the only one in our family with any talent.
My time to shine is on its way, I can feel it!
Chapter Six
E-PETITION Number of signatures: 572
Wow. What a week! Not only did my petition gain even more signatures (squee!) but Nathan said hi to me every morning. In fact, this week has been so good that I didnât even make a fuss when Rolo ate my new beret, especially since Liam says it looks like I am balancing a cow pat on my head when I wear it.
Itâs also totally amazing being in the press gang! Mum says I should learn something called shorthand to speed up my note taking, which seems to be like Egyptian hieroglyphics and only proves how old my mother is. Kelly asked me to shadow Nishaâs coverage of the netball tournament after school on Wednesday, so I got to hang out with her and all her cool Year Nine mates and absolutely none of them drew any weird squiggly pictures instead of writing. They asked me about my dress for the May Ball and I tried to be all vague but the truth is, I havenât dared ask Mum for one yet, even though it is only two weeks to the ball. Sheâll probably suggest I make it out of the twinsâ old